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Re: Yanking text properties
From: |
Stefan Monnier |
Subject: |
Re: Yanking text properties |
Date: |
Thu, 01 Nov 2001 18:44:11 -0500 |
> A common problem in message mode (the Gnus mail and news composition
> mode) is special text properties accidentally yanked into the buffer,
> typically from the Gnus summary buffer which contain lots of such
> properties.
>
> - For the field and intangible properties, this mean that the code to
> manipulate the headers may get improper results.
> - For the invisible property, it means users may send text they did
> not intent to send.
> - For the read-only property, it means the user get strange and
> unexpected errors.
> - For the mouse-face property, it means the buffer will look strange
> and confusing to the user.
I agree that there's a problem with all those properties: some of them
relate to the actual chars (i.e. real text properties) while others
only make sense in their original context (i.e. should be stripped
when copying the text, `field' being a particularly striking example).
I'm not sure what's the best solution, but a (buffer-local)
variable holding a list of text-properties that should be stripped
by `yank' shounds like a good starting point.
Of course, maybe another solution is to make sure that those
things that should be stripped never get there in the first place:
make them overlays rather than text-properties. Is a `field'
text-property ever meaningful ? Shouldn't it always be used in an
overlay instead ?
Stefan
PS: What about character compositions, by the way. Should those
composition text-properties by preserved even when we do
`buffer-substring-no-properties' ?
Or is it assumed that they will get re-created as necessary when the text
is inserted into the buffer ?
Re: Yanking text properties, Richard Stallman, 2001/11/02